Screen star and budding Shakespearean actor, Liev Schreiber, is in talks to play the title role in Hamlet at the Public Theater in New York. A spokesman at ICM, which reps Schreiber, said talks were in the very early stages and nothing had been settled. Schreiber made a hit with his last performance for the Public, in Andre Serban's 1998 production of Cymbeline at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. The actor's performance as Iachimo won him the Joe Callaway Award, a prize given out annually by Actors' Equity to honor the best performance in a classic play.

Schreiber's film work has been divided between big studio pictures such as "Ransom" and "Sphere" and independent oddities like "Party Girl" and "The Daytrippers." He is perhaps best known for his role in the teen horror film "Scream" and its sequel. Schreiber made his Broadway debut in 1993's In The Summer House at Lincoln Center.

Ironically, Schreiber will play Laertes opposite Ethan Hawke's melancholy Dane in a film version of Hamlet to be released later this year.